Fourth of July celebrations are an exciting time and many children enjoy fireworks displays. With a little extra care and bending the bedtime rules, parents and children can sit back and enjoy the fun.

I'm not one of those moms desperately wishing her kid slept through the night. I'm one of those moms who counts the number of times one of her kids has slept through the night after he stopped nursing. Because it is that small of a number.

This is going to be a train wreck because I haven't slept in months. So my mind is about as sharp as a Boppy pillow and organizing a cohesive thought is not my strong suit these days. But I need to speak from these depths of exhaustion and bleariness, to give a voice to my fellow sleepless parents and to warn them of the trap that is the baby sleep book.

It was already 1:30 in the morning, and I had to wake up at 6. Tomorrow was going to be a long day -- as if the night wasn't already long enough. I felt frustrated and defeated. Who knew that a tiny, 11-pound baby could make a grown man feel so pitiful?

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to all of you bleary-eyed mamas out there. I was once that bright-eyed and bushy-tailed mother with the one well-rested child rolling my eyes at you and your sleep training folly.

my years as a parent have also made me realize that there are so many things we can't control. Quantities of information aren't satisfying because they're never enough, and information by itself can't give you peace of mind.

Some public health messages everyone can agree with: Never drink and drive. Always put your infant in a car seat. Other public health messages seem to ask us to do the impossible: Teenagers must never have sex. Mothers must never share a bed with their infants.

Despite 20 years of public education about SIDS and other sleep-related infant deaths, the practice of sleeping with infants and babies has become more common -- especially in the Hispanic and African-American communities.

Although some superhero babies sleep 10-12 hours straight starting around 3-4 months of age, most infants wake up during the night and cry out for their parents. There are scientific reasons and some developmental and behavioral explanations for these awakenings.

It's not often that we parents get told to do what we want to do. Usually we're told to do something because it's better for our child -- and whether we have the ability to do that thing, let alone the time or energy, doesn't enter into it. So enjoy this wonderful bit of parenting slack.

I lied not to protect myself, but because these were not my truths to tell. In all of these cases and so many more (I can't tell you about the more, for the same reason I didn't admit to these in real time) it was their privacy I was guarding, their secrets I was keeping.